The subject matter described herein relates generally to a method and a system for operating a wind turbine, a method for repairing a wind turbine. Further, the subject matter concerns a wind turbine comprising such a system.
At least some known wind turbines include a tower and a nacelle mounted on the tower. A rotor is rotatably mounted to the nacelle and is coupled to a generator by a shaft. A plurality of blades extend from the rotor. The blades are oriented such that wind passing over the blades turns the rotor and rotates the shaft, thereby driving the generator to generate electricity. However, malfunction may occur during operation of the wind turbine. Some malfunctions may deteriorate the annual energy production. Other malfunctions may lead to a complete stop of the wind turbine. Some malfunction may be based on a software failure and a restart of the wind turbine, the wind turbine software or one of the wind turbine controllers may redress the malfunction. However, other malfunctions cannot be remedied by such an auto reset, restart or reboot, because they are based on faults of specific devices, for example hardware faults. It is important for an operator of a wind turbine to determine the respective cause of the wind turbine.
Typically, many functions of technical units are usually displayed to a user via fault codes or error messages. These messages are often cryptic and may potentially consist of multiple different root causes. A service technician must then diagnose the actual root cause from his experience or by trial and error. For example, the service technician may follow a trouble shooting procedure consisting of reviewing trouble shooting guides and going through a complex process of validating, measuring and inspecting components of the system, in particular of a wind turbine, to find the real root cause.
Going through fault handling procedures is time consuming and requires good educated personal. For example, a guideline may include steps like switching a contactor and measuring a feedback signal, verifying whether the parameter settings are correct, verify internal software life values like wind speed and temperature, call and communication with remote control center, starting a defined test procedure, and checking a wire connection. Such steps require generally technical knowledge.
The order of inspections has a big influence on the efficiency of trouble shooting. In case of a fault of a motor protection switch, a technician may call a remote center to ask about a frequency of the fault. Then, the remote center sets a specific parameter. In the following, the technician is ordered to do a reset and to check whether a default is resettable. This shows that such procedures are time consuming and need a lot of expertise. However, if the technician has done the work in another sequence it may take longer to find the cause of the malfunction of the wind turbine.